The Steampunk Suite

We moved into the Steampunk suite, which was all steam, and no punk.

"So, you ready to go play the pokies?" I asked.

"The whats?"

"The pokies. Go and play the pokies and have a beer." Except I said it like "bee-yah".

"Like Gumby and Pokey? And what?"

I've been watching a lot of world-wide television lately, now that the Internets has become a 'thing'. And I used that space age technology to watch two seasons of Married at First Site Australia, and most of a season of The Seven Year Switch. And I swear these twins who married these two guys said "bee-yah" when they wanted to blow the froth off a couple. (Or drink a beer.)

"It's Australian," I explained. "They call slot machines pokies. And they drink bee-yah. So you ready to go and play the pokies? Maybe we'll meet some nice Sheilas!"

Stuff stashed, we exited the Steampunk Suite, punched the elevator button, boarded the very first car that arrived, and punched 'L' for Lobby.


"Let's all go to lob-by, let's all go to the lob-by..." I sang softly, with the intention of planting an earworm in the Quad Queen's brain, such that she would think of that every time she repeated the vertical travel exercise.

Because that's exactly what she did to me starting a few years ago.

It's all in good brainwashing psychotraumatic fun, people, don't get your grey matter in a knot about it.

That moment had arrived, the one we'd waited all day for. The casino! Machines! Lights! Markers! I intended to hit it, and hit it hard, and break Vegas if it took every dollar I possessed.

QQ decided to exercise her financial prowess and make sure our credit was still good. Good lord, was I to wait while she did what was basically the banking?

I walked over to the nearest possible gambling machine, sat down, and pounded in a $100 bill (which is a neat trick when dealing with paper currency).

I hit Max Bet and looked to see what I was doing. Ah, video poker. Ah, Double Double Bonus. Ah, dollars. I'd lunged at a bank of dollar machines with a progressive on the Royal.

First hand, two pairs! I was winning already!

By the time the QQ showed up with her freshly minted stake, most of the hundy was gone.

Que?

No matter! We moved on to other, greener and redder pastures, where we might get a cold bee-yah. Or in my case, a Maker's rocks. And in her case, a ready supply of Jameson's.

We got fixed up and got our machines going and the Quad Queen struck first video poker blood of the trip.

Straight Flush - Dealt!

A nice dealt hand, and I countered with one of my own.

We were dog tired but it didn't matter. This was what we came for!

We played quite a while at the bar and... nothing much ensued. Other than drinking and spending.

We played around the casino a bit, trying some spinners and multiplay.

And got our asses kicked.

In fact, all the winning hands we got on the first night are pictured above.

Time for a bite and the coffee shop and my beloved Hawaiian Hamburger Steak. QQ chowed down on a club sandwich (unpictured - what do you freaking want, it's a club sandwich).

Hawaiian Hamburger Steak, loads of onion gravy, fries. $10! (Or free with coupon!)

Ladies and gents, we took a beating. We only played an hour and a half and it was bru-tal.

Not the way you want to start a trip, but that's gambling.